


Yes, My Lord

by empirestrikesben



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adultery, Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Downton Abbey Fusion, Beta Finn (Star Wars), Beta Poe Dameron, Beta Rose Tico, Breeding, Divorce, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Historical, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mentions of Pregnancy, Minor Poe Dameron/Rey, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Poe knows about and is fine with Rey and Ben having sex, Praise Kink, Pregnancy Kink, Rey and Poe are married, Size Difference, Size Kink, adultery is usually a triggering topic for me, and i completely understand if you want to stay away, and i was not triggered while writing this, and wanted to honour his vow to his fiance, are also mentioned, but only because Poe thought Ben died in the war, if it makes you feel somewhat better, mentions of torture, send me a message if you wanna talk about it!, so it's COMPLICATED, so no one cheats behind anyone's back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25698931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empirestrikesben/pseuds/empirestrikesben
Summary: Lord Renfordshire returns from war after being MIA for two years to find that his adopted brother Poe, a Beta, out of a sense of duty to his brother, has taken Ben's betrothed Omega, Rey, as his own wife.Though none of them are pleased by the situation, propriety and status prevents them from separating. That is, until Ben makes a trip to the family home and unsuspectingly arrives when Rey is in heat.Then propriety be damned, Rey wants her Alpha.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, implied Finn/Poe
Comments: 54
Kudos: 443





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I have said a couple times on Twitter... idk what came over me with this one. Please check the tags for triggers before reading! Hope you enjoy!

The first indication that something is gravely wrong when Ben's carriage pulls up to the grand country estate, is that the Lady of the house is not there to greet him. The second, is that her ladies maid, Miss Tico, approaches him quickly with a look of deep concern on her face, her Beta scent spiking disagreeably sour.

"Lord Renfordshire," she says with a quick curtsy, "we are grateful to see you here at last."

"Yes, my carriage was delayed in Chatham, please accept my sincerest apologies for my lateness —" 

"It is quite alright," she says in a strained voice. Impatient to the last, Ben asks with little hesitation:

"Miss Tico, is everything alright?" 

Rose, as Rey sometimes calls her, spares a fleeting glance at the other servants standing in a firm row behind her, before stepping close and whispering. 

"Lady Dameron has gone into heat, my Lord."

Ben feels his entire body stiffen, and not at all in a pleasurable way.

"I see," he says, his voice coming out more strained than is really acceptable in polite society. "When did this happen? I would not have maintained my scheduled appointment had I know the Lord and Lady were... indisposed."

"It began yesterday morning, Lord Renfordshire," Miss Tico supplies helpfully. If she notices his scent spiking in anger, she doesn't say anything. Instead, she says the worst thing imaginable, "however, Lord Dameron is still able to see you for your scheduled visit."

"Excuse me?" Ben grits out in disbelief, "he is not attending to her?" 

Miss Tico must sense his rage now, as she takes a step back, her shoes scraping against the gravel driveway. 

"No, my Lord, he is in the parlor —" 

With little care left for propriety, Ben steps around Miss Tico and heads straight for the front door, pulling off his hat as he passes the doorman without a word and walks straight across the main lobby to where he knows the parlor is. He'd know this house like the back of his hand. 

He grew up in it, after all.

Finally, he throws the door of the parlor open and a wave of raucous laughter hits into him like a wall.

Poe Dameron, surrounded by a cabal of gentlemen friends, sits in a mahogany dining chair, his feet up on the antique table, a smoking pipe in his hand, and a smile on his face, which falls off the second he lays his eyes on Ben.

"Dear brother," he says, pulling his feet off the table and standing at attention. He doesn’t make his way around the table to greet Ben though. If anyone can smell the rage curling off Ben in waves, it’s Poe, and more than that, he knows he’s the cause of it. "You're late to my party."

Ben sees red as he looks around the room, his eyes barely lingering on one man for any length of time. Finn, who Ben knows well of course, sits just to Poe's right side, his chair a noticeable inch closer to him than the others.

Finally, Ben turns back to Poe, and everything he’s thought of saying for the past year since he’s been back comes spilling forwards. 

"You know, when I found out that our dear mother had replaced my betrothal to Rey with yours, I thought to myself — what does a Beta want with an Omega wife anyways?"

A thick tense air fills the room and Poe, to his credit, manages to maintain direct eye contact with him. It’s likely only their brotherhood allows him to resist the instinctual, primal urge to turn away from an Alpha’s stare.

"But all manner of folk assured me that despite your mutual lack of attraction and compatibility, that you were taking care of her. You _yourself_ , assured me of this," says Ben carefully as he can. "So tell me, Lord Dameron — your wife goes into her first heat since your wedding, and where are you?”

Poe scrabbles for an answer, and Ben just waits, seethes, until finally it becomes apparent that he has no excuse. 

“You know how I know I’m right?” Ben says and points straight at Finn, “because _he_ hasn’t come to your defense once.”

All eyes turn on to the young man sitting beside Poe, and he shuffles uncomfortably in his chair. 

“Okay,” Finn nods finally, “I’ll admit it, I’m worried about Rey too.” Poe lets off a string of expletives, and Ben lets himself feel moderately triumphant for what feels like the first time in years. “Come on, Poe, I’ve heard this stuff can be dangerous. Why can’t you just go and help her?”

 _Yes, no, yes, no_ , Ben’s head seems to scream. 

_Yes, Rey needs help_. _No, not Poe, not Poe_. 

It’ll dig the knife in too deep, lodge it in his heart forever. Because if his brother and his soulmate consummate their false marriage, what reason will Ben have left to live? He should’ve just died in that camp — 

"She won’t have me," Poe finally spits, and the room goes so silent Ben can hear the pounding of his brother's heart. "I… I went to her, when it all started, and I offered to do… what I can. And she said there was nothing I could do, and even if there was, she wouldn’t want me. She practically _laughed_ me out of the room.”

Ben doesn’t let his adopted brother, who in the greatest of fairness to him does look truly desolate at this admission, see how much he delights in this revelation. 

His sweet, feisty, Rey. Stubborn to the last. Except this time, she’s put herself at far too great a risk in doing so. Ben tries to breathe deeply and calm the fear that rises in his chest at the thought.

Yesterday morning it started, Miss Tico had said. Nearly thirty-six hours then, that she had been alone and in desperate need of relief. By now, she would be in the full throes of heat, and at her age, with some part of her conscious of the fact that she was wed, even if not mated to an Alpha, it would be all the more painful to have to suffer through without assistance. 

“Why, Poe?” Ben says on the edge of desperation, “why did you marry her? If you knew it would always be this way?”

Poe shakes his head, almost sadly. 

“Ben, you were _gone_. You had no idea what it was like here. Mother was beside herself with grief. Rey, despondent. I… I thought you were never coming back. We all did. We wanted to do right by you this one way, make sure Rey could still have the life you promised her.”

“When I was _gone_ ,” Ben hisses. “You mean, when I was a prisoner of war behind enemy lines, being tortured within an inch of my life. You saw fit to give up on me, and take my title and my intended wife.”

Ben shuts his eyes, and behind the closed lids, every waking nightmare from those years comes swimming back to the forefront of his mind. 

Commander Wilhelm Snoke, and his long knives and his cruel smile. Promising freedom and delivering only pain. For years how the only thought that kept him fighting for life was Rey. Her kindness, and compassion, and quick wit. Her sweet smile, and her soft lips as he’d kissed her farewell. Her affectionate letters that were his talisman to life back home. 

Her letters which Snoke’s imprisonment had denied him from returning.

For as long as he lived he would never forget the day the regiment liberated the camp, and a young ensign had found him, strapped to the table, bleeding from one of Snoke’s deepest slices into his flesh, the cut that ran from his right eye to his pectoral, still fresh from that morning.

But the worst injury had come whilst Ben lay in the makeshift hospital back in Whitstable, and Poe himself had delivered the news that their mother had passed, and fearing the worst for Ben’s own life, he had taken Rey as his wife in Ben’s place. Poe left him with five thousand pounds for a flat in the city, and a brown paper package stuffed with every letter the army had returned to Rey after Ben went MIA. 

The letters scattered his room in his small flat back in London, each one of them lovingly held and read a thousand times over. 

Rey herself, he had only seen once since his return. It was here at the estate, now her home but not for the reason they had always thought it would be. She had sobbed in his arms, her fingers tracing over what scars she could find above his collar. Grief-stricken, she’d begged him to run away with her. That she would leave Poe, and they would be together, and “ _damn what anyone else thinks about it, Ben._ ”

But Ben, stupidly, and with his mind on what the high society ladies already said about Rey, and what wicked words they would spin if he were to ever agree to such an indiscreet proposal, refused her. 

Now, Ben couldn’t help feel like she had been right all along. 

Maybe, just maybe, he could still make it up to her. 

“Well what would you have me do now, Ben?” Poe says, with a shrug. 

Ben shares a fleeting but loaded look with Finn, and waits for the other man to nod, assenting to know he knows Ben will say. 

“Divorce her.”

Poe scoffs at that, “on what grounds?”

“Adultery,” Ben says, as though it’s clear as day to everyone except Poe. 

“Wait a minute,” he protests, “I may not be able to mate her, or love her the way that you do, but I have given up —” now it’s Poe’s turn to throw a hurt look towards Finn, who takes it with grace “— _everything_ to honour her. I have _never_ been unfaithful.”

“Lord Dameron, please accept my apologies for my lack of clarity, and allow me to elucidate my meaning” Ben says, his suddenly murderous tone at odds with his polite language. “ _I_ am going to go upstairs, and with a house full of witnesses, fuck your wife, and _you_ are going to call the lawyer and draw up the paperwork. Is that clear?”

Poe swallows around a lump in his throat and nods. 

“Crystal.”

With a final bow to Poe, and an enraged glare around the table, Ben turns heel and slams the door open again, rage slowly transforming into something he dare not speak a word to — not yet. 

“Miss Tico,” Ben calls through the house until the slight, short woman pops out of one of the rooms and walks quickly to meet him. 

“Yes, Lord Renfordshire,” she says expectantly. 

“Do you have a pen and paper that I may borrow?”

Rose leads him into the study, and with shaking hands pulls a note card and a fountain pen from the small drawers, setting them both on the writing desk for him. Ben makes quick work of his letter, ensuring his language is to the point, and without ambiguity. 

> _My Dearest Rey,_
> 
> _Having learned of your predicament upon arriving at the house just now, I have received confirmation from Lord Dameron that he will grant you a divorce on the grounds of adultery so that I am able to help you through these next few trying days._
> 
> _I am sorry I tried to fight you on this idea last year, but I could not let go of my desire to ensure you would not be thrown out of society for being an adulteress. I fear now that in my desire to see your reputation unharmed, I have put you in grave physical danger._
> 
> _If you wish to go through with this plan, please send this letter back with Rose indicating as much, and I will attend to you posthaste._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Ben_

Rose grabs the letter and flies up the grand staircase, taking each step two at a time. Ben hears a door open from up above and then slam shut again. Without warning, he’s forced to clap a hand over his nose and mouth as the scent of an Omega in heat — _his_ Omega in heat — briefly wafts down to the main floor. He grips the edge of the door frame for stability as he feels his cock start to fill and harden. 

For the first time in a long time, he lets himself imagine what it will be like to be with Rey, in the way they’ve both longed for. Ben knew she had only had a trifling few, but painful and grueling heats since she had presented as an Omega, and until they were to be wed, Ben had been forbidden to be in the near vicinity for any of them. 

Once they were mated, he knew they would become more frequent, but also regulated, and far, _far_ more pleasurable for her. As long as he was good for her. 

_I want to be good for her_ , he thought, his hands gripping so hard into the wood frame he left indentations where his fingernails were. 

_Rey’s good Alpha_.

Finally, with the same speed with which she had ascended the stairs, Rose comes hurtling around the corner and leaps down the steps, finally coming to a stop in front of him. She holds out the letter in her shaking hands. 

Ben takes it, ignoring the slight tremor in his own hand as he turns it over to read Rey’s message. 

> _Get up here. Now._

Relief floods through him, followed quickly by hot anticipation. This was not what he expected his social call to his childhood manor home would turn into when he arrived this morning, but God he was not complaining. 

Ben drops the letter onto the writing desk and tears off his jacket, tossing it haphazardly to the floor. 

“Miss Tico, when the lawyer arrives, please give him this letter and inform him that Lady Dam — Lady… _Rey_ , will be able to sign any necessary paperwork by Thursday,” Ben says and Rose nods at him with wide eyes. “Please have a tray of food sent up to Rey’s room at once. Bread, soup, grapes, anything small and soft and easy to eat, and tea, please, lots of tea. Chamomile if we have it. And I’ll need a bucket of ice water replenished every two hours with a set of towels and cloths — anything you can find.”

They both stare at each other for a few beats in silence, almost daring each other to move first. Finally, Rose breaks and with a quick curtsy says, “it will be done, my Lord.”

Then she is off, and nothing stands in between Ben getting to Rey. 

He takes the stairs faster than Miss Tico, leaping up three at a time with his long legs, adrenaline coursing through his veins. In what feels both like an instant and a millennia, he is standing outside the room that Rey has been holed up in, which he realizes with no small amount of pride, is his old bedroom. With only a thin wooden door between them, the smell here is already more potent, and Ben’s mouth waters at the sweet, honeyed tinge of it. 

How Poe was able to resist he’ll never understand, but he wasn’t thinking about that now. No, his thoughts narrow singularity to her, and him, and all considerations of propriety and good society melt away into something more instinctual, more primal. 

Ben eases open the door with the patience of a thousand monks, carefully, so as not to startle her. 

The sight that meets him in her room is nearly enough to kill a man. To say nothing of the sweet honey and vanilla scent of her that hits him like a wall as he shuts the door, closing them both in the confined, unventilated space. 

Rey lies in the middle of her bed, a loose, white nightgown seeped in sweat clings to her body. Her hazel eyes glassy and wide as she takes in the sight of him at the door, her hair unbound from pins and ribbons, lies in tangles across her pillow, and her skin flushes a deep pink, almost red in some parts. Her legs quake as she rocks helplessly against a pillow that has been stuffed between her thighs, and Ben’s cock strains so hard against the front of his trousers he can hear them tearing at the seams. 

Then, to Ben’s complete incomprehension, Rey hisses, “you’re _late_. You were supposed to be here yesterday.”

“I — my carriage broke a wheel, we had to wait for a repair,” says Ben, “Rey did you… plan this?”

She groans and rubs her hips harder into the bed, need and want rolling off her in waves, and Ben is no longer able to resist yanking off his waistcoat and tie, and ripping the buttons of his collared shirt off until it falls open. He’s fumbling for his belt buckle when she speaks again.

“Well you and Poe weren’t doing anything about it, and I was not going to spend the rest of my life wed to a Beta who doesn’t love me, when _my_ mate is alive and walking about London trying to find his place in the world,” she shakes her head as she says it, her breath coming in deep, panting puffs, but there’s no fire behind it. Only tenderness. 

Ben drops his belt to the floor and unclasps his trousers, pulling them and his underwear down just enough to free his heavy cock, which finally springs forward, curling up against his abdomen. He sees Rey’s gaze flick down to admire it, and for what he knows will not be for the last time, he wishes their first time together could’ve been under better, slower circumstances. 

There’s no time to consider such wistful dreams now though, and he climbs onto the bed, his trousers still mostly on and his tall leather boots dragging mud across the bed sheets. If his mother could see him now she’d be chastising him for having his shoes on the bed. 

Ben was very glad his mother could not see him right now.

He makes quick work of her nightgown, ripping it down the front and pulling it off her body. He hopes she wasn’t fond of it because there’s truly nothing left of it. The pillow that she had been rubbing herself on, now drenched in slick, is tossed aside as well. 

Assuredly, Ben crawls up the bed until he’s laying completely on top of Rey. Her legs, which part around his waist and hold tight, are the only part of her not wholly enveloped by his torso. He takes a moment to just drink in the sight and scent of her like this, bared for him and only him. 

“This is it,” she murmurs, her pupils blown so wide her eyes could almost be black. Ben thinks the heat finally has driven her mad for a moment, before he remembers what she said last. “This is your place in the world,” she says softly, her hands reaching up to cup his cheeks and run lazily through his hair. Her words are too sweet for this moment, and they claw agonizingly at his heart, trying to gain entrance. “In your home,” she says unrelenting, pressing a kiss along his jaw, “in our bed,” one of her legs tightens around his waist, and her heel digs at his ass until the head of his cock touches her warm, wet entrance and she gasps, “in _me_.” 

Ben digs his boots into the mattress and pushes into her, his cock sinking in nearly all the way in one long, hard thrust. 

Rey cries out so loud he’d be shocked if they didn’t hear it at the next estate over, let alone downstairs in the parlor. If the lawyer shows up in the next three days, he can be his own damn witness to this impropriety, never mind a written confession. 

Ben, for his part, manages to hold it together for longer than he thought would be possible. Rey is a hot, wet vice around his cock, and it takes him a few long minutes to acclimatize to this new feeling. Too long, evidently, as Rey keens and starts to squirm underneath him.

“Please, Ben,” she practically whimpers, her pert breasts bouncing a little as she shakes with tremors, and it’s so unlike how he’s used to seeing her, the sight of her this way bowls him over for a moment. This is still his Rey, but transformed by burning need into something else entirely. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs adoringly. Rey rolls her eyes. 

“Yes, you’ve told me that before,” she groans, grinding her hips down onto him so that he sinks another inch deeper. “Now, tell me how much you’re going to fuck me.”

Ben shakes his head with a small laugh, and since she’s in the middle stages of this heat, he only has to give her a couple quick thrusts before he’s seated all the way inside her, and the base of his cock where his knot will swell inside her, already begins to throb. 

“Were you always this mouthy?” he asks, giving her a few teasing thrusts. “Or has the heat driven you mad?”

“ _You’re_ driving me mad,” she bites back, and while being stuffed full with his cock has quieted her somewhat, she still manages to mumble, “and I’ve _always_ been this mouthy.”

He has no idea what he’s doing, neither of them do, but he lets go of any such worries and surrenders to nature. From there, it’s easy. He fucks into her with long, hard thrusts, letting her clench around his girth for relief for a longer few beats before pulling out to the tip, and repeating the movement over and over again. 

His name falls from her lips with such ease he can’t help but wonder how many times she’s said it when he’s not been around to hear it, and the thought drives him to fuck into her even harder than before. He tries to hold her as much as he can, one hand skimming over her thighs and hips and breasts as he holds himself up with the other, so as not to crush her smaller frame. 

He can tell the first time she comes around him as her fingernails scrape over his back and she somehow gets even louder. Under regular circumstances, he would finish inside her and they could call it an exquisite way to spend an afternoon. But in the middle of a heat, Ben knows one orgasm is merely trifling. 

He fucks her through it at an unrelenting pace, and she doesn’t take any time to calm down from that one before she’s begging for more, her lips on the shell of his ear, whispering things that would make a whore blush. 

“ _I want you to have me out on the lawn, Alpha, so no one would ever again doubt who I belong to._ ” 

She says other things too, things that make his hips stutter, not because of their indecency, but because of their softness. 

“ _I want children to run around the gardens of this house again. I want them to be ours._ ”

Ben’s resolve breaks and he pushes down a little to nuzzle into the crook of her neck, changing the angle of his thrusts, and licking and nibbling at her scent glands. Rey sobs through her next orgasm, her hands scrabbling for purchase on his back, now shining with sweat. 

Her legs start to give out after that, and instead of curling around his broad waist, they fall open to the sides, and his next thrusts are somehow even deeper. Ben leans up on his elbows again, gripping the oak-wood headboard with one hand so he can drive the full power of his hips into her with every thrust. The knot around the base of his cock starts to widen enough that he can feel it bumping against her every time he bottoms out, and he knows he won’t be able to last her coming around him one more time. 

He pulls one of her knees up to her chest, practically folding her in half, and drags her leg across his body, so he can lay behind her when his cock knots inside her. He plants his wide hands on her hips as she settles herself on her front. Without the strength left to hold herself up on her hands and knees, she collapses flat onto the bed and he fucks her hard into the mattress with a last few quick thrusts before his vision whites out and he spills his release deep inside her, his knot swelling to it’s full girth inside her wet warmth and locking there. 

The feeling of him filling her full of come must be enough to send her over the edge again as her body spasms underneath him for her third orgasm in what feels like as many minutes, but Ben knows has most certainly been nearly an hour. 

As he slowly comes down from his orgasm, his come still filling her in small spurts, Ben stares down at the woman underneath him disbelievingly. 

Those long years of torture under the knife seem like someone else's nightmare that he had most regrettably been privy to, because it seems impossible that one man’s life could be filled with such extreme pains and pleasures in equal quantities. 

Here, everything is soft, in shades of cream and pink, and the woman he’ll make his mate and his wife gently trembles around the thick press of his cock knotted deep inside her. 

As Rey shudders quietly through the aftershocks, Ben rearranges them so she can lay more comfortably on her side as she comes down from the high. Plus, if the detailed diagrams his tutor showed him when he presented as an Alpha at sixteen are anything to go by, then they’ll be caught in this position for a while. 

Not that he’s complaining as he settles in behind her, pulling her flush against his chest, because Rey is warm and sated and in his arms, and for the first time in forever, it feels like they belong to each other again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the tags for possible triggers and shoot me a message if you have any questions before reading!
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter: mentions of torture, scars, self-hatred, pregnancy.

When Rey wakes, a note of surprise passes through her at the lack of agony that courses through her body. The past day and a half had been brutal, but now the pain has lessened, and she feels more like herself than she has in ages. 

In a long, _long_ time, if she’s honest. 

It has everything to do with the man laying behind her, his warm, muscular arms wrapped around her midsection, the hard length of his cock knotted deep in her, providing the sated, full sensation that her body is craving. 

After a moment of wrapping herself fully in the softness of this waking, her eyes blink open lazily and she angles her head back so that she can stare up into his face, and confirm that yes, he’s here. And if he’s here, she’s safe. 

She has want for nothing — no need to beg and plead, because Ben will give her everything she wants before she even asks. Though judging by the way he’d picked up his pace every time she _did_ whine and cry for more of his cock, she figures she could get away with it anyways. 

Her only complaint in this moment is that for some reason, his skin doesn’t feel as soft as it should, particularly along where his legs are tangled in with hers, until she finally realizes —

“Are you still wearing trousers, my love?” she asks, her voice a little groggy from the nap. 

Ben’s head perks up from where he’d been laying on the pillow, his eyes a little sleepy, but alert and wary once he sees that she’s awake again. 

“Mhmm, boots and all,” he nods, and the corners of his mouth soften a little as he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose, “you simply could not wait another moment, dear.”

Painful as it is to do, Rey sits up on her forearms, and pulls herself off of him. His knot has deflated by now, so it comes with ease, but they both groan at the loss of touch, and Rey can already feel her body’s temperature kicking back up in protest. 

“Take off the rest of your clothes,” she says, sitting up fully, “and then come back here and fuck me again.”

Ben wastes no time and sits up on the edge of the bed to unbuckle and pull off his boots. The white collared shirt comes next, and Rey feels her heart tighten when she spots the thin, pink lines of scars that run across his back and burn marks in a few spots. 

She can’t help the gasp that falls from her lips at the sight, but she regrets it immediately. 

“Sorry,” he says, trying to pull the shirt back on, “I know, they're disgusting.”

And that simply will _not_ do. 

Rey crawls across the bed to him, pulling the shirt aside fully and wrapping her arms around the wide expanse of his torso. He’s warm, and everything about his scent works to simultaneously calm and arouse her. 

“They are battle scars, and they are beautiful,” she whispers, kissing the side of his face, his neck, his torso. “You are beautiful.”

Ben sits up a little to pull his trousers and underwear down his backside and off his legs until finally he is as naked as she is, sitting on the side of the bed. 

“Hey,” he says, turning back to her finally, “that’s my line.”

She keens high in her throat as he pulls her in for a deep, open-mouthed kiss, the wet swipe of his tongue parting her lips making her gush and clench around nothing. 

“Please, Ben,” she whines, using up her dwindling supply of begging before Ben picks up on the fact that she’s doing it on purpose. 

For now, he has no complaints, and flips them both back onto the bed so he’s behind her again, and bends her over on her hands and knees so her cunt is bared for him. 

His warm, massive body covers her, and his cock bumps into his entrance as he whispers, “do you want me to take you like this again?”

Rey finds the strength to shake her head. 

“No, want to see you. Want to sit on your cock,” she says. 

Ben groans but obliges her, flopping down so he’s sitting up against the headboard, and pulls her into his lap, her legs spread wide on either side of his waist. 

“This good?” he asks, positioning the head of his cock against her. She only has to nod once before he’s pulling her down and his cock sinks into her easily, aided by gravity and the wet slick of her heat. 

She watches Ben’s face the entire time, and she knows the same awe and pleasure must be reflected back on her own, and they both groan the moment he bottoms out entirely. 

Rey feels split apart by him as his thick girth stretches her open wider than she’s ever been before. For a while, she simply slumps onto his chest and lets him do the work. He holds her close and possessive, one of his massive hand gripping her waist, the other across her back, and thrusts up into her at a steady pace, and she is more than content to just be held and used like this, safe and comfortable in the arms of the man who loves her more than anyone else in the world. 

It’s that thought that has her coming with a soft gasp into his neck, her body spasming around him as he fucks her through it. 

But she is well acquainted with tiny, heat orgasms that don’t serve to sate her, but instead the opposite. She can tell this is one of them. 

Desperate for more, Rey sits up on her knees, gripping his shoulders for purchase, and rides his hard cock through one orgasm and quickly into another, the head of his cock bearing down on a spot inside her that has every nerve of her body screaming for release until she’s finally crying out on top of him. 

She feels so hot she could explode, like the only thing keeping her tethered to this plane of existence is the solid man underneath her, the comforting grip of his hand on her waist, and rubbing soothing circles on her back. Her mate. 

Her Alpha.

As she comes down from the high a bit, she realizes he’s speaking softly to her. 

“It’s alright, my dear,” he whispers against the soft flesh of her neck, dangerously close to the mating gland at the base of her neck. “I’ve got you.”

She feels good, so good, and she wishes the heat would let her think that this is enough, but it’s not, it seems to never be. 

“Need your knot again,” she whimpers, falling once again into his chest. 

At her words she feels Ben, her soft, gentle, considerate mate, _snap._

He takes her hard, bouncing her vigorously in his lap, and soon it’s not sweet, tender encouragements he’s murmuring to her, but filthy, obscene things that even in her wildest dreams didn’t imagine he knew how to say.

“You’re mine, Rey, you know that. My pretty little Omega, taking my cock so well.” The world narrows to the timber of his voice alone, receptors overloading as he satisfies every need, not just the physical ones. 

Even though she’s rendered speechless by this development, she tightens around the thick press of him between her legs as much as she can, trying to make it good for him. 

Good for her Alpha. She’ll show him how well she can take it. 

“ _Yes_ , Rey,” he groans, “so good for me. Not too big for you, right?”

She shakes her head almost manically, the little beast inside her that her heat has brought out purring at his praise. She’s never felt this before, this desperate _want_ for an Alpha’s praise clawing at the very core of her. 

But Ben, of course, is her exception. He always is. 

At some point she feels her mind go entirely, trusting fully in Ben’s care and tenderness, even buried deep underneath primal need, until finally the swollen base of his knot pushes in and she clamps down hard on instinct, locking it in place as he comes deep inside her. 

She barely registers how loud he grunts with his release, and the white-knuckle grip he’s got on her hips, which certainly will leave bruises once this heat is through, because her body wrings itself through yet another blinding orgasm. Every one of her nerve endings frays with her release, and she teeters on the edge of passing out from the sensitivity.

His knot is just what she needs it seems, as finally the sweat starts to cool on her skin a bit, and slowly she comes back to herself, registering their pounding hearts beating against each other’s sweat-covered chests. 

Rey rests blissfully in his arms for an indiscernible amount of time, allowing her body the time it needs to acclimatize to the spread of him again as he pulses inside her with the aftershocks of his orgasm. 

She nuzzles into his neck and then looks down between them, wanting to know what they look like tied together like this, and finds herself mesmerized by the way the lower part of her abdomen already pushes out in a small swell. She’s well and truly full of his cock and his come and she hiccups a little laugh at how happy the sight makes her. 

Finally, she looks up to meet his eyes. 

Being knotted this time is even better than before. Now, she’s sitting in front of him, and she can see every endearing, adoring look he gives her as they stare fervently into each other’s eyes. For the first time in years, she gets a good look at him. 

He’s changed so much since before the war. His boyish, soft face, which he’d kept late into his twenties, has been replaced with this strong man. A hard jaw, dark eyes, the remnant of a deep scar slipping down one side of his face to end at the top of his chest. 

She knows what made this scar. Who made it. 

Poe told her. Prepared her, before she saw Ben again, for what he looked like. How he’d changed. He didn’t tell her all the details, but enough. Finn, her dearest friend and closest confidant during the war, had held her as she sobbed through Poe’s account. 

She wants to _kill_ the man that gave it to him, hurt him in every way he hurt Ben. Keep him separated and isolated from everything he loved, but as she understands it, he is already long dead. 

So she does what seems like the next best thing. 

Rey leans in slowly, and with a gentle press of her lips to pink, jagged skin, presses the lightest of kisses to the top of his scar. 

Ben gasps sharply, his knot jolting inside her. Undeterred, she continues, pressing a line of tender, soft kisses to each inch of the scar. Across his cheek, under his jaw, down his neck, and finally laving over his pectoral muscle where it ends. 

When she looks back up at him, she finds tears slipping silently down his cheeks, and before he has the chance to wipe them away, she leans in and kisses them too. 

“It’s alright, my dear,” she whispers, a light jest at the sweet words he’d whispered to her earlier, “I’ve got you.”

Ben shakes his head, “I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

Rey kisses his lips, “we take care of each other.”

He nods at that, and pulls her in for a tight hug, one that’s almost laughable platonic considering they’re quite literally tied together in such a vulgar, sexual way. 

They do though, Rey thinks. Take care of each other, that is. They always have. Though the fever of her heat licks flames up the insides of her head, some clear memories fight their way through. 

There was the time when the four of them, Poe, Finn, Ben and she, went on a long hike through the Takodana forest. She twisted her ankle while climbing a tree, and was certain they’d have to wait for hours until a stretcher could be sent for to bring her back home. Instead, Ben wordlessly gathered her up into his arms, and carried her the rest of the way. 

She can’t count the number of garden parties and evening galas they’d suffered through together, passing notes to each other, giving each other reassuring smiles across the table when one relative’s line of questioning got too intrusive. Rey never really worried once about the Alphas from out of town who would come into the country and try to woo her — they always gave up the chase as soon as they saw Ben. 

And she will of course never forget the day of the Earl’s funeral. Ben had been stoic in the receiving line, unassailable during the eulogy. But after the wake, when the guests had gone, and his father was buried in the ground, Rey had been there to hold him as he’d cried through the night. 

“What do you need?” Ben whispers lovingly into her hair, bringing her back to the present. As though his warm hands running across her back in slow circles, the deep musky wood scent of him surrounding her in pleasant, comforting waves, and his cock and knot and come filling her in every way her body craved, somehow wasn’t enough. 

“You,” she sighs against his chest. “Just you.”

\---

Her heat escalates, time stretches on like a hot summer, and Rey loses track of entire days. 

Ben feeds her bite-sized morsels of food, tasty little things that she loves. Cheeses and fruit slices and the like. He makes sure she has a constant supply of Chamomile tea, and combined with the cold, soft clothes he drapes over her skin, it works to calm her frayed nerves and keep her body temperature cool. 

When they can manage it, conversation is in healthy supply as well. They fill each other in on the few pleasant, happy memories they can recall from their time apart. Rey enjoys hearing about all the funny things Ben’s overheard from neighbours at his small flat in London. She delights in recalling the few times that joy found her when he was gone; hearing the children’s choir on a Sunday morning, the parties on Armistice day. 

But it’s the nights that are her most treasured moments during their week. When the air outside cools, and the fever in her dissipates, and she can almost pretend that she isn’t in heat — that they are husband and wife, simply enjoying the physical touch of one another during a quiet evening. 

That’s when she can bear him being the most tender with her, and she doesn’t cry and beg _harder_ when he languidly rolls his hips to take her with slow, measured thrusts. Tears well in her eyes when she realizes on the last night that this is how he’ll always want to have her. Gently, and lovingly, and putting her pleasure first. He’s not silent, but quiet, each word chosen carefully and whispered lovingly into her skin in between kisses. 

As dawn breaks on a sunny Thursday morning, Rey can tell the fever has finally left her system. 

She fights off consciousness for a little longer, clinging to the warm, sleepy haze of this moment, focusing in on each individual fragment of it’s perfection. 

How Ben’s chest is soft and warm underneath her cheek as he holds her tight against him, his hand tracing lazily against her skin. 

How she aches in different places than she’s used to after a heat, but is more than happy to trade the usual empty, hollowed-out agony of an unfilled heat, for the fingerprint-sized bruises that dot her skin, and the lingering twinge between her legs from being taken so thoroughly and repeatedly. 

How even without his cock thrust deep inside her now, she feels full and satiated in such an exquisite way she’d never thought possible before, not just physically, but deep in her soul too. It’s almost like she’s…

Rey sits up on Ben’s chest suddenly, her eyes wide as she locks onto his and she feels around the back of her neck for her mating gland. 

“Did you —”

“No,” Ben shakes his head quickly. Her fingers brush over the tender spot, but she feels no bite marks or anything to indicate that he claimed her in such a way. “Rey, I would never without asking.”

She moves her hand back around and brushes it over his cheek, now rough with stubble after having gone so many days without the chance to shave. His eyes are almost fearfully earnest, and she presses a lingering kiss against his brow to calm him. 

“As if I would’ve _minded_ —” she murmured. Then, because she _needs_ to know, she asks, “did you… consider it, though?”

Ben looks about ten years younger with the way a self-satisfied smile splits across his face, and his cheeks heat with an embarrassed blush. 

“I uhh,” he clears his throat, “I thought about it,” he says carefully as he spreads his hand over her lower back, “every time I looked at you,” he brings his hand slowly up the ridges of her spine, “every time I was inside you,” his fingers inch teasingly closer towards the base of her neck, “every time you _begged_ me to do it.” 

She has no time to feel self-conscious about that particular comment because the soft pads of his fingers finally touch the edge of her sensitive gland and she melts into a puddle in his arms. 

His name is all she can whine as he rubs it with deft, sure strokes and she collapses against his chest, her legs falling apart around either side of his thick, muscular thigh. 

He continues to circle it, teasing the spot until she’s wet and rutting against his thigh. She buries her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his soothing scent, gripping at his broad shoulders for purchase. 

At first, it seems that he’s content to tease her like this and leave her to rut helplessly against his thigh for relief. But this is _Ben_ , she remembers, and after only a few minutes of desperation, he flips her over on her back. 

She keens as his hand leaves her mating gland, but he’s rubbed it so tender that even the bed sheets dragging against it offer some amount of relief. Besides, he busies his hands with other pleasurable caresses, to which she cannot complain in the slightest. 

His warm fingers trail down her neck and over her breasts, and linger softly over the slight protrusion of her abdomen. If he’s thinking the same thing, he doesn't speak to it, and nor does she. 

Then he trails his lips lower, and Rey nearly feels like she's back in heat again as his tongue laves over her swollen, wet clit. He kisses and licks at her, his rough stubble scraping against her tender thighs, until she's sweating and trembling all over, her hands fisted in his long, soft locks.

She's gaping open and dripping with slick in mere minutes, and after several days of having come around his cock an incalculable amount of times, she will have nothing else now.

"Ben, please," she begs, "please fuck me."

He groans against her wet cunt, sending tremors throughout her body, and even though it looks like it pains him greatly to do so, he pulls back and wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand. 

His cock is pink and erect in his hand when he sits up, giving it a couple tight pulls before shuffling forwards on his knees and perching himself at her entrance.

With one final heated but reassuring nod, the blunt head of his cock pushes inside her, slipping through her wet to slick drive deep into her.

Without the burning fever of her heat to distract her, she feels every inch of his long, thick cock split her open, choking on a whine in her throat as he bottoms out in one thrust. 

His lips and tongue had done the necessary work to soothe most of the pain, but nothing could've prepared her for the feeling of being stretched around him like this. 

"You need to move," she grits out, and Ben needs no further encouragement. 

He pulls back out all the way, the head of his cock dragging against the tight insides of her walls, and then pushes back inside with a slow, deep thrust. 

This tempo had been exquisite when she was in heat, and the number one thing her body craved was fullness, but now that it's stimulation she wants, the rhythm is not nearly enough.

"Faster, please," she whines. 

Above her, Ben shakes his head in disbelief. 

“God, you are _insatiable_ ,” he says, picking up the pace of his thrusts until she’s practically vibrating on the bed from the speed of them. “Thought you would’ve had enough of my cock for a lifetime after the week you’ve had.”

“I could _never_ have enough of your cock,” she says, shaking her head. 

His expression turns absolutely feral at her words, and he slips his hands underneath her knees, pushing her legs up and back until her hips are in the air, and he pounds into her even harder at this new angle. 

Rey sees stars as he drives into her unrelentingly, and she realizes that in the midst of her heat, her addled mind had somehow glossed over this. 

_This_ , being the incredible sight of the perpetually refined, uptight Lord Renfordshire of Chandrila Abbey, debased to a mere animalistic instinct, taking another man’s wife to bed for no other reason than he wanted to, and she asked. 

He’s like a wild, untamed beast as he impales her on his cock with deep, unabated thrusts. 

Rey gives up any attempt at staying quiet, and soon her throat is hoarse and her lungs ache and her vocabulary seems to narrow to just _Ben_ , _Alpha_ , and _yes_. 

Finally, almost out of pity, Ben removes one hand from under her knee, and his thumb presses down hard on her clit. 

Rey knows she screams when she comes, but she can barely hear herself over the roar of blood pumping through her ears, and her mind goes slack as she gushes and clenches around him. 

Ben comes seconds later, with an equally loud guttural moan. The only indicator that there’s still something left of the rational man locked away in Ben’s head is that he doesn’t let his knot catch, leaving it to throb and push desperately at her entrance. 

She wants to _sob_ at it’s absence inside her, and how the lack of it signals that her heat is through and they have business matters to attend to now. 

Thankfully, Ben doesn’t pull out immediately. He seems content to continue to fill her in some way as the rise and fall of his chest, gleaming with sweat, slowly steadies, and he looks down between them in amazement. 

After nearly five days of heat, Rey almost misses the dozens of small orgasms that would rip through her each time Ben came inside her, but she rides the wave of this one for a pleasing length of time, until her own heart rate starts to fall to a normal beat, and his spent cock begins to soften inside her. 

Finally, Ben pulls out of her with a mournful sigh and strikes her with an uncertain look. 

“What is it?" she asks. 

“Today might be a hard day, Rey,” he says so solemnly that she almost considers not making a joke, but it gets the better of her. 

“Certainly not as hard as your c—”

He stops her with a kiss, the weight of his warm body coming down gently on top of her until she melts underneath him, smiling against his lips. 

“Must you always be so crass,” he mumbles endearingly against her lips, but there’s no anger in it and so she whispers back with a kiss —

“You wouldn't want me any other way.”

They kiss lazily for a few long minutes, wrapped up in the combined scent of each other, until finally their kisses slow, and he eases off of her to stands up, stretching his long, muscular limbs, sunlight peeking through the window and casting a warm, pink glow on his bare skin.

She almost can't believe how relaxed he looks, an easy smile playing at his soft, full lips. The scar down his cheek doesn't look so deep as he runs a hand lazily through his hair and yawns. 

"Come on, you," he teases, pulling on his discarded clothes, "you've got some paperwork to sign."

She whines at the thought of having to leave this small, private space that they've hollowed out together, where their scents have mixed into a satiating blend together. The last thing she wants in the world is to have to return to a world where they're buttoned up tight in uncomfortable clothes, and precluded from holding and touching each other in polite company. 

But she knows she has already caused enough scandal, and the time to face reality has arrived.

They dress silently, occasionally pausing to help the other tie a small bow or fasten a button. Ben, in what clothes he hadn't destroyed three days ago, and Rey, in a simple blue dress slung low on her hips that she pulls from her closet. 

"I assumed you'd just come in here for your heat," Ben asks as she hikes stockings up her legs. "You don't sleep in the adjoining martial suite?" 

Rey scoffs at that. 

"Not a chance," she assures him. "The master bedrooms we keep empty, Poe and Finn just sleep in his old room. And me well, I like it in here.”

She finishes rolling on her stockings and fixes the skirt of her dress back down her legs. Ben reaches a hand towards her, and she lets him pull her to a standing position. With one final kiss, he pulls her out of their room, a wall of cool, sharp air tickling her nose. She wants more than anything to dive back into their little nest, but she lets him tug her gently down the stairs and to the door across from the main hall. 

The state of the Chandrila Abbey drawing room is a sight to behold.

Four heads turn as she and Ben walk through the door, and Rey has to fight off both an abashed smile, and a laugh as she realizes each wears a more comical expression than the last.

Rose stands at attention behind one of the couches, only the glimmer of amusement breaking through her otherwise measured expression.

Finn twitches uncomfortably on the couch, never one to navigate a tense situation easily, his eyebrows raised in obvious concern. 

A scrawny, short man who can only be the Solo family lawyer sits ramrod straight at the desk, his face bright red and his papers already strewn around him. He's been here for a while, which means… 

"Benny, Benny, _Benny_ ," Poe whistles and punctuates every intonation of his brother's nickname with a slow, loud clap. "We thought you were _never_ going to be done up there, isn't that right, Mitaka?"

Mitaka, who Rey presumes is the lawyer's surname, doesn't say a word, but the blush on his cheeks turns a shade redder. Rey spares a look at Ben beside her, who sports a matching faint blush across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

_Preposterous_ , she thinks, after every absolutely filthy thing he'd said and done to her the past several days, that he could somehow be feeling embarrassed.

"Before the proceedings begin," Ben says, clearing his throat, "I would like to apologize to you all. I believe I, ah, may have said some things, that in the clearer light of day, seem ill advised."

"Hmm…" Poe slaps a hand under his chin in a mockery of contemplation, "yes, I seem to recall such highlights as ‘ _you gave up on me and took my title_ ’ and ‘ _call a lawyer because I'm going to fuck your wife_ ’. Did I miss any others, Finn?"

Rey shares a laugh with Rose as Finn fights for words. 

"You know this really is a very serious situation," Finn says, shaking his head at Poe's antics. 

"Again," Ben says, tensing beside her, "I am truly, very —" 

"Ben," Poe holds up a hand and finally stands from the couch, coming forward to stand in front of his brother, “you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

Poe sticks out his hand for Ben to shake, and after the briefest pause between them, Ben ignores the hand entirely and wraps the significantly shorter man in a tight hug. Rey doesn’t think she’s ever seen them hug before, and when they pull away, both their eyes look watery. 

Poe then turns his gaze on Rey, a mischievous smile playing at his lips, which she returns. 

“You on the other hand,” he jokes. “I _knew_ you were up to something.”

“No you didn’t,” Finn sighs, unmoved from his spot on the couch. 

She feels the pangs of apology as well, for her deception, for forcing everyone hand in this way. But the taste of victory is too sweet for her to care. 

“I believe you have some papers for me to sign, my husband,” she chides. Poe motions for her to follow him to the desk, and she tosses a beaming smile to Ben as they pass. 

“Mr. Mitaka, my horrible, adultering wife would like to confess to her many crimes. Are these the documents for her to sign here?” Poe winks at her as he says it. _No one has it this easy_ , she thinks. How could she, of all people, have been gifted this false husband but true friend, in both him and Finn, who through all of this will not just let her make this choice, but stand by her through it. 

“Y-yes, p-please sign here, and here,” the small man shakes as he points to various lines on the pages in front of her, and she grabs a fountain pen off the table to follow his instructions, signing a swooping signature wherever he indicates, until every page is completed. 

He produces the letter that Ben had written her and attaches it to the file as evidence. 

“And as for witnesses…” he gulps and a look of nausea passes over his face, “I believe I heard enough to serve as a witness myself.”

Finally, he packs away his things into his briefcase, pulls on his hat, and for the first time since they entered the room, looks squarely at Ben. 

“The papers will be filed by tomorrow evening, Lord Renfordshire, I will be sure to leave a copy at the office in London,” Mitaka says briskly. Ben gives him a curt nod, signalling that his work here is finished. 

Clearly eager to leave, he bows to Poe, and Rey stifles a laugh as he practically folds in half at Ben, and makes the quickest of exits out the door, Rose following to see him out. 

Rey looks at Poe as the realization that the long nightmare of the war, of losing Ben, and their misguided but earnest union, is over with one clear sweep of her pen across paper. 

"Well, I do hope that you will find me more agreeable as a brother in law than you did as a husband," he says with a shrug and a note of sadness. 

Tears well in her eyes again and she nods emphatically. She reaches out to grab his hands, squeezing them once tightly, before finally letting him go.

"Now I think my brother has something he wants to ask you," he says, a romantic glint in his eye, and quietly slips out the door, dragging Finn along with him.

Rey's heart leaps in her chest as she meets Ben's gaze across the room.

Nothing, not one final thing, stands in their way now.

Ben strikes across the room in several rapid steps, Rey’s heart pounding harder with each of his steps, until he crashes into her like a storm, wrapping himself around her and slotting their mouths together in a frenzied kiss.

Her hands can't decide where to touch him, they fist into his hair, the front of his ripped shirt, grab at his shoulders and his chest, disbelieving that the solid, warm man in front of her is not some figment of her imagination.

She feels wetness on her cheeks and realizes with a wrench in her heart that they are both crying into the kiss, the combination of both their bodies trembling with tears adding to the frantic, desperate embrace. 

It must go on for some time, because she starts to feel lightheaded and weak from having to stand for so long after the exhaustion of the past few days, and Ben leads her gently to the nearest couch, but instead of taking a seat beside her — 

He gets down on one knee.

For some time he doesn't say anything, just blinks up at her with wide, searching eyes. Eventually, he finds the words.

"Sometimes I think this is a dream. That I'll wake up back there, in that camp, thousands of miles from you, and the horrors will commence. These past few days… I thought must have been a dream as well. Some vivid, glorious dream where we belong to one another, wholly and without challenge. But they too, inconceivably, seem to be real."

He's just barely holding it together as he says it, but not her. 

She is lost to this moment, to this man on his knees before her, to the incomprehension of their impossible reunion as he continues.

"And now, it once again feels beyond belief, that I may kneel in front of you here, and ask if you would do me the greatest honour of letting me be your husband."

She laughs through a sob and even though tears blur her vision, she can feel the warmth and joy radiating off him, his scent sweet and lighter now mixed with hers. She knows without examination what she wants to say.

"I have one condition," she says with a wet hiccup.

"Name it, and it's yours," he whispers, and fishes out a handkerchief from his breast pocket. She takes in gladly, dabbing at her eyes until they're acceptably dry, and says —

"It must be this Saturday."

Ben grins and shakes his head ever so slightly. By now, he's used to this sort of recklessness from her, but Rey would find it miserably dreary if he ever stopped being perplexed by it. 

"Saturday, as in, two days from now?" he asks. She nods with a beaming smile until finally he says, "and why is that, my dear?" 

"Two reasons," she explains, leaning close to his delighted smile. "One, I refuse to spend a single day as a divorcée when I could spend it as your wife.”

His grin widens at this and his lips press a chaste kiss to her cheek. 

“And the second?” he asks. 

Rey pulls one of his hands up and rests it gently against her stomach in answer. He looks between her abdomen and her face, his mouth falling open in realization.

“Do you think?” he asks, his eyes brimming with hopeful tears. 

“I do,” she whispers, “and I would like you to spare me the further scandal of having your baby a mere _eight and half months_ after becoming your wife.”

His face splits into a grin that stretches from ear to ear, and before she can even breathe he’s off the floor and kissing her again, his large, warm hands crushing her to his chest so tight it’s impossible to tell where one of them begins and the other ends. 

“I find this an agreeable condition,” he whispers in between another bruising kiss. 

Ben leans back into the couch and gathers her into his arms so she’s in between his legs and her back is pressed against the length of his lean torso. He keeps one hand on her stomach, the other rubbing soothing circles over her shoulder, and he kisses every inch of her his lips can reach. 

Rey shuts her eyes and leans into the embrace fully, letting him shower her with this adoration for as long as he wants. Soon, she’ll haul him off this couch, call the minister, the florist, the chef, and whoever else they need to pull together and throw themselves head first into the frenzy of organizing their wedding in less than two days. 

But for now, they remain in their loving, gentle embrace, eyes closed against the orange morning sun streaming in through open curtains. Only the sound of birds singing outside the open window interrupts their quiet moment of shared peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this smutty little angst fest is finally complete. If you enjoyed the end of Ben and Rey's story here, drop a kudos or a comment, and as always, come hang out on [twitter](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben)

**Author's Note:**

> Well. That was certainly something. Thank you for reading! There will be a chapter two, but if you enjoyed this so far, drop a kudos or a comment, and come hang out on twitter at [empirestriksben](https://twitter.com/empirestriksben)


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